It was a clever idea, I thought. I was going to write about how the quote from Nelson Mandela relates to seeing the purpose of one's actions - how a good way to learn a skill is to first try something that relies on it, so that you see an immediate purpose for the knowledge. Learning by doing, learning by teaching...
Then, later the same day, I overheard another student talking about how much she hates the school - and, to all appearances, how much the school hates her. That's when I realized that I would have been writing about myself in a vacuum. I could do that well enough, but there are plenty of people who can be intelligent in a vacuum and yet completely lack the understanding or motivation to help people, especially people like her. She's the kind of person whom many people view as annoying and overly dramatic because, to put it bluntly, many people are quick to judge. I listened to her story without judgment, and it was nothing I haven't heard before - and that's the problem, because she was talking about discrimination by school administrators, about lack of communication both at school and at home, and about innocent people being hurt by a runaway 'war on drugs'.
Nelson Mandela said "If you want to make peace with the enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." That's a beautiful idea for when you're ready to make peace; it shows you very clearly what you have to gain by working together, and what you will lose if you return to hostility. What, though, if your enemy is not ready, if they are so arrogant that they will not even negotiate with you? and what if they are someone that society hold so high above you - like an adult in the face of a child?
Don't get me wrong; high school has been a very positive experience for me. The fact that I succeeded not because of, but despite the first nine years of my formal education serves to give me perspective on the benefits of the less hypocritical teaching that takes place at my high school, and on the possibilities in a place with still less of its authoritarian culture... but there are still those who never get back the curiosity that their exposure to elementary school takes away, who go on to college and hate it in order to land a career whose purpose they never truly understand...
The essay I was going to write had nothing but positives in it. Hopefully it was the kind of essay that would show creative and analytical thought - but what use is thought or ability without the vision to use it for good purpose?